


A snippet of time

by SerenaDusk



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reverse Falls (Gravity Falls), Background - Freeform, Freeform, Gen, POV First Person, Past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:21:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23856784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerenaDusk/pseuds/SerenaDusk
Summary: We know what Will's life is like when he got involved with the Gleeful family. But what do we know about his past? After all, an ancient being such as Will must have had a life before that.
Kudos: 5





	A snippet of time

_A story told by a demon_

My name is William Cipher. I am a demon. A Dream Demon to be exact. My kind is feared throughout the dimensions because of what we can do. We’re watching you when you are at your most vulnerable: while you are asleep. Your dreams are our reality. But not just that. They exist in a place called the Dreamscape. My home realm, where I navigate through dreams in a way that is impossible to describe with words. Dream isn’t like the real world. Everything is possible here. Time, space, dimensions… they can be shifted and bent to you will. The best way to describe travelling here is changing the channel on a television, except you’re changing your entire reality. To humans it would be maddening within seconds. For me, it is second nature.

I don’t usually have access to the human world, except when I am invited. A summoning, as humans like to call it. I love coming here. It’s so different from the everchanging chaos of the dreams. A flower continues to be a flower and transformations are much slower. A caterpillar takes days, if not weeks to turn into a butterfly. And a week is always seven days, a day is always twenty four hours. Seasons change roughly every three months. It is so simple and beautiful to see. I wish I could come here more often, but like I said, the humans fear my kind. They have a point, but I wish it was different. I have no desire to hurt humans, at least not if they don’t hurt me. I would rather spend my days with them, instead of against them.

Throughout human history there have been a few times mortal men and women needed my aid. It was always my pleasure to help them out, but I continued to see the fear every time I showed them as much as a fraction of what I could do. Our collaborations were short, but I treasured them. Somewhere around the 18th century, in a land called England, magic was not welcomed amongst humans. Those who possessed the necessary aura and abilities to wield it were hunted down and killed. It was in this time one of them called for my aid. The last time I made a deal.

His request was not that complicated. His wife had been accused of witchcraft while it was actually the man himself who held the power in his hands. It was a limited form of elemental control, just enough to make the most amazing teas. He offered me a cup and I have never tasted anything like it. He begged me to remove the family from the records. To take them out of society and let them start over again. He also begged me to take away his abilities so his family would never be at risk again. I was hesitant. Magic is a gift, not a curse. Too much of it can consume a human, that is true. But this man was responsible, kind and only used it to sustain his family. People came from all over the country to taste his tea. The dreams I had visited lately had told me even the royal family had tasted from his brew. And now he asked me to take it away. To mutate his aura until it was no longer suited for magic. The desperation in his eyes made clear to me how much he wanted to protect his family.

So I complied, on the condition I would be allowed to take the knowledge he wished to forget and store them in a book. So that the art would not be lost forever and could be rediscovered by the right person. It took me a while to convince him, but then gave me a leather bound book with blank pages. He made me promise to not return the book to the human world until after he and his wife had passed. I agreed and held out my hand. He took it and we shook. That was the last time I saw the yellow flames around my hand. The man lost consciousness after that and I made sure to erase all traces of magic before he woke up. Instead I gifted him the burning passion to travel the world, which he did. Until his very last day I visited his dreams, with the book of his knowledge in my hands. It was beautiful to see him take a boat with his wife, to the New World called America. There he settled and opened a restaurant. He continued to serve tea, but it was never as good as it once was. A great loss of wonderful abilities, but a life was saved and even more than that. Because his wife was spared from her fate, they could grow old together and even produce new life. A beautiful set of twin boys. One took after his father, I noticed that right away. The aura was clear enough, but the father meddled with every opportunity of the boy to discover his abilities. Out of instinct, I think. After all, he had no knowledge of his own magic anymore.

The man lived a long time for a human. When he passed, his sons were both married and had children of their own. The one with the promising aura had a son too and I saw it again. This family would be destined to a long line of mages and sorcerers. And perhaps, if those abilities were allowed to bloom, they would become stronger and help more people. So I took the book and left it somewhere for them to find. Then I left the family alone. It was not my place to follow all the descendants of this one man who gave up something so special to save his the life of his lovely wife. I lost track of them and I do not know what became of the line of sorcerers. Something tells me I might see them again in the future. But who knows? There are more humans every day and the chance I will run into them is small. The only way I would ever know is if I taste that tea again. I will never forget that flavour.


End file.
